- A boy had a gigantic baseball-size tumor in his neck
- But he managed to get an operation for its removal
- This condition affects practically only males, and are very rare
A 17-year-old boy with a gigantic tumor in his neck and nose was successfully operated by surgeons in India.
The procedure has helped him breathe through his nose for the first time in ten years. There have only been sixty five cases like his recorded around the world.
The condition is known as juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, which is a benign form of tumor, but very aggressive in its growth.
The boy in the middle of the operation.
The people who have suffered from this condition are almost entirely male, so experts believe it may be hormone-related.
The tumors tend to bleed often, as they join many blood vessels within. This situation can make them life-threatening, due to the chance of hemorrhage.
X-ray of the tumor.
The teenager not only had difficulty breathing, but also eating and talking.
The surgery lasted three hours. The extracted tumor had the size of a baseball and weighed 750 g. The boy had not had the chance of an intervention before, because he comes from a remote Indian village. Thankfully, he is reported to now being back at home, and recovering satisfactorily.